What the Internets are
We had this assignment in calculus that was basically to do a review of a website. There was a writeup as well as a presentation. Being the Internets kinda guy that I am, I had a lot of fun doing the writeup, because I could finally complain about websites and get marks for it. Unfortunately, the presentation part had a few snags to it.
Basically, I got a crappy mark on the presentation, which, if it were not for my terribly brilliant writeup, would have brought me down by very much. Part of our mark was based on the site itself. If we chose a bad site, we’d get worse marks. That’s where stuff went wrong: it was the difference between my view of a good site and my teacher’s view of a good site.
Some stuff our teacher was looking for in our sites was the use of graphics, colour, and interactivity. Her rationale was that we’re presenting it, so the more of those things there are, the more interesting it would be for our presentation. Instead, what I did was I chose the most interesting site based on its content, thinking that it would be alright.
That’s not to say that our site didn’t have any of those things. I’ll admit, it was a bit lacking in interactivity, but the site was the most well designed of the bunch, and I felt that it had enough graphics and colour without being distracting or ugly.
This little incident helped me see how the non-Internets view websites. Obviously, as someone who likes to blog, has a blog, and was stupid enough to drop money for a blog, and someone who dabbles in design, the way I judge websites is incredibly different from someone who actually uses the Internet because they have to or something.
Take design for example. My standards of design go far beyond what is considered to be ‘good design’ by most everyone else in my class. When the others talked about design, they talked pretty much about the overall appearance. Not even any details. Were the colours okay? Was the type legible? Was the structure of the site coherent? Was there any thought put into design at all?
But the thing that bugged me was the demand for something interactive. Apparently, the future of learning is the Internet because the Internet is interactive and you can play around with stuff and books can’t do that. Except that the Internet is still all about text.
Some of the most compelling content on the Internet is not crazy Flash movies or Java applets, but long passages of text. Another name for them might be articles or essays. I’m not even talking about the news, I’m talking about things that I’ve read that smart people have written and put up on the Internet.
And ultimately, that’s what the Internet is all about. What does a search engine search for when put in queries? Text. The Internet is still a text-based medium, contrary to what else you may hear. The name of the underlying language of the Web, HTML, stands for Hypertext Markup Language. Web pages are just special documents.
When you go look for something on the Internet, is the first thing that you think of when you go through that site “Hm, can I play around with this site?” No! The worth of the Internet is not that you can fiddle around with things and learn with your hands, since most people are visual and not tactile learners. No, the Internet is such a wealth of information because there’s so much of it that you can access easily.
Blogs are the hot thing right now. Most everyone has one. Why are they so popular? It’s not because they’re interactive, it’s because they (usually) have compelling content on them. They’re the receiving end of many of the thoughts that mostly smart people have. The ideas of smart people contribute to the wealth of information that we already have and allow more smart people to find those ideas and make their own contributions.
There is a reason why television and radio hasn’t replaced books and writings. And the same goes for the Internet. There’s a reason why the Internet is still all about text. It’s because it’s still the most accessible way to transmit and receive ideas and ideas are what drives smart people.
And…since we’re talking about ideas…Dan Brown won with the “you can’t copyright an idea!!!!!!!1111111″ phrase (not exactly as worded).
Actually, I think that too. That’s the whole basis behind the fight against software patents.
It’s like saying you have the exclusive right to write about, say, Elves. Tolkien was the first to come up with the idea that Elves as they are portrayed in modern fantasy. The copyright office grants J R R Tolkien an exclusive right to create and distribute any works that contain Elves in them. Tolkien is the only one who can write about a race of pointy eared, fair, immortal, magically powerful people who are proficient in the use of the bow and arrow. So what happens?
Well there are lots of great works that have Elves in them. Forgotten Realms has Elves. They have Winged Elves, Drow Elves, Wood Elves, all sorts of Elves that are based on the Elves found in Tolkien’s works. Warcraft has Elves: High Elves, Night Elves, Blood Elves, which are also based on Tolkien’s Elves. Then there are the D&D Elves, the EQ Elves, the Elfaan from FFXI.
We tend to think that granting patents and copyrights actually spurs on innovation by creating incentive for creators to create works. But if we’re not careful and we become zealous over what is called “intellectual property”, then we see that rather than nurture creators, we harm and kill off innovation.
In summary, I agree with Dan Brown that “you can’t copyright an idea!!!!!!!1111111?
I took this course in Visual Arts this year – i think i mentioned it to you — “Understanding Digital Art” and interactivity was one of the major things we had to analyze specifically in terms of digital art — which goes anywhere from digital flash sites, to digitally produced noises, to digital photography to robotics and finally to plain simple code, and text.
Its kind of interesting to look at interactivity from an artistic (visual art) perspective especially concerning digital art cause yes INTERATION is all the rave in the newest, latest, most innovative – The Nintendo Wii, and the ripped PS3 controller design are consumer examples. However true, or ‘higher’ levels of interaction far surpass what the ‘non-internets’ as you referred or general people see it. They see it as simply point and click — you do something, and it responds. Or maybe a few of them have this notion of backwards interaction in which it interacts with you — via random functions, or some sort of sensory input output like our popular ‘interactive’ game consoles.
However — Interaction is so much more — like we looked at simple code and algorithms which were considered art because it was a hyperlanguage in that it can be computed — to create ‘art’ but also because one can look at it and appreciate the logique flow, and in your head compute the outcome — very few ppl would consider that ‘interactive’ but if you think about it — whats all the rave about interaction? its ‘immersion technology’ you enter this ‘pseudoworld’ and you can do whatever you want — and it will respond however…
To me your argument is pretty interesting cause heck flat graphics, flash animations are like interactive in its most raw form… whereas text — information that you need to read, understand — and often ‘imagine’ is the like complete immersion — :P when you’re clicking around a graphical math website its just surfing, but reading its input — and your mind is the limit… to what you take out of that haha bla bla bla i should go to bed :P
sorry to hear you have a bonehead teacher. but it is a good reminder to clarify what the teacher’s objectives and assumptions are *before* you put all your eggs in one basket – a good lesson for university.
to my mind, the only reason sites should have to resort to flashiness is because the rest of their content is not compelling enough to keep a visitor’s attention. the exception is where the content is artistic in nature to start with, but then the design should still fit within the parameters of the artwork being showcased. i’ll plug one of my friend’s websites as an example: http://www.erinbrubacher.ca/
i guess the only other thing you could have done was to add some ‘interactivity’ to your actual presentation, but that would depend on whether or not your teacher was smart enough to distinguish between your ‘additions’ and the source website.
Well, I wouldn’t say that my teacher is a bonehead, but rather, the normal people don’t really know or care about what makes a good site. And people naturally like shiny things and are drawn to shiny things. Unless the general populace cares to learn about the nuances of content, writing, design, and all of that other stuff, they’ll be drawn to the shinies. It’s the same with computers and cars and art. If we know nothing about it, shiny things win, and most people really know very little about the Internet.